


In An Instant

by crutchiebytheway



Category: Newsies (1992), Newsies - All Media Types, Newsies!: the Musical - Fierstein/Menken
Genre: Angst, Drowning, Illness, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, M/M, Murder, Suicide, if that wasn't obvious, wwi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-15
Updated: 2017-07-15
Packaged: 2018-12-02 10:40:08
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,262
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11507691
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/crutchiebytheway/pseuds/crutchiebytheway
Summary: Jack's first instinct was to scream, scream until his lungs gave out, scream at God for doing this to him again and again and again.Or, a look at Jack Kelly's life through the moments where he loses someone.





	In An Instant

**Author's Note:**

> hi guys! just a fair warning, please take notice of the warning tags, and while i don't think i wrote anything too graphic be aware of what will happen in the story. thanks, and take care!

It only took an instant, and Jack was alone. 

He had slowly pushed open the door to his momma's room. He wasn't supposed to. His father warned him of that. But it had been so long since he had heard his momma's cowboy stories, or her sweet voice singing him to sleep. The quiet that now filled the house was stifling. He had to see her.

Jack wondered if his mother knew somehow, and planned her last moment so that Jack could watch. As the door crept open, she gave one final, shuddering breath, and she was gone. And none of Jack's screams could bring her back. 

Jack couldn't even bear to leave the room. Some ominous presence keep pestering him, telling him that if he dared leave that room something would come and take the body of his mother away. That wouldn't do at all. Perhaps if his father got home soon he could call the doctor and his momma wouldn't have to go yet.

His dad found him, hours later, huddled in the corner, crying. He didn't have to ask what happened.

Something inside of Jack's father switched that day. He worked and worked and worked for days on end. When he was home, his breath reeked of alcohol, and Jack stopped hearing his voice. They never spoke aloud to each other, and instead, communicated only in violence. The father he knew had died, replaced by a bitter old man, who aged several years in a few short days. When he stopped coming home, Jack wasted no tears. He had mourned the loss of his father long ago.

* * *

Finch stopped eating only a few weeks after the strike. 

"C'mon, Finch," he tried to coax. "You gotta eat."

Sometimes Finch would try, Jack would give him that. But the food simply sat in his mouth, and eventually slid out and fell to the ground. 

Jack stayed with him when he could. Sometimes, he'd go to leave but look down at the pain in his friend's eyes and wonder if it was similar to how his mother felt when she died. No way could he leave him then, not when Finch was so scared and Jack was so guilty. 

He'd place one hand to Finch's clammy forehead while the other grasped his hands, tethering him to reality.

"Jack," he'd choked out once. He did that sometimes, try to piece together a sentence in his delirious state. "You there?" 

"Yeah," Jack said, rushing to push his hair back. "Yeah, Finch, I'm here." 

Finch stared at him for a moment, struggling to focus on Jack's face. "Hi, Jack." The moment he said it, he was weeping and griping Jack's hand harder. "It hurts," he managed through sobs. 

"God," Jack breathed. "I know. I know. Just hang in there." It's all he could say.

It was nighttime when it finally happened. The morning came and the birds sang without Finch to join them, instead, only a few of the younger newsies crying. Jack forgot how new this would be for some of them, and how painfully familiar for others. While some wept for the loss of their friend, others only stared with unseeing eyes as they got ready for the day.

Jack made an attempt to clean himself up. His hands suddenly felt very heavy. 

Crutchie made his way over to him. "Jack. Is he...?" He swallowed, cutting his words short. 

Jack met his eyes and gave a short nod. He felt a lump growing in his throat and he almost kept it down, but Crutchie's hand flew up to cover his mouth, he let out a low whine, and Jack couldn't help but match the sound. He wrapped his arms around Crutchie and held tightly with everything he had.

"You take care of yourself," Jack spit out. "You hear me? Take care of yourself, Crutchie."

* * *

"Where're the Delanceys?" Jack asked one morning. Purchasing his papers had gone by much smoother than usual, with only an unusually unresponsive Weasel handing him his papers. The Delancey brothers were nowhere in sight, and while they only caused him more trouble, any of change in routine since... since Finch was something Jack took notice of. 

"You didn't hear?" Racetrack asked. Jack shook his head. Racetrack leans in closer to share the news. "They're dead." 

_"What?!"_

Race nodded. "Oscar picked a fight with some police officer. I guess he was all talk 'cause they left him lyin' alone in the snow. And Morris offed himself when he found out." Race mimed tying a noose around his neck. "Found him hanging in Weasel's house." 

Jack glanced at Weasel; He wasn't meeting any of the newsies' eyes. 

Memories of the Delancey brothers flashed through his mind. Oscar teaching him how to sell his papes. Morris helping him pick a bed in the lodging house. The two of them missing in action when he's arrested. Coming back from the Refuge only to find that they'd been promoted. Picking fights with them in the streets. The feeling of abandonment.

Racetrack must have seen something in his face, because he placed a hand on Jack's shoulder and said, "Let's start sellin', yeah Jack?"

Jack swallowed hard. "Yeah. Let's get goin'."

* * *

He was reluctant when Romeo first told him he was going home. 

All these years he'd known Romeo, he'd always silently cursed the people who'd pushed him away. But Romeo insisted he'd be willingly to go with when his father showed up at the lodging house, so who would Jack be to stop him? This man was Romeo's real family, not some band of newsboys who could barely take care of themselves. Romeo insisted it was fine. 

"I think things have changed," he said. So Romeo said goodbye, promised to write, and was on his way. 

The first few days, his empty bunk was a sad reminder not only of Romeo, but of Finch, who had left them in the worst possible way almost a year ago. Jack often had to remind himself that no matter what his first instinct was, Romeo was fine.

And the bunk filled itself relatively quick. Not long after, a little boy in tattered clothes rushed himself in, begging for a place to stay. 

"Please," he begged through an accent, "It is terrible. I have nowhere else." 

"Of course, we'll get you a bed and get you sellin' soon enough," said Jack, leading him through the Lodging House. "Where were you before this?" 

"Brooklyn! I come to America for greatness, and they tell me Brooklyn is the greatest, but it is terrible!"

"Is that so?" Jack said, thinking of Spot and chuckling.

"Yes!" the boy exclaimed without any mirth. "Everyone says the Brooklyn boys are violent, but it is not true. It is the boys taking over that are violent!" 

Jack stopped in his tracks. By now, the boy has gained an audience.

"What's he talking about?" Albert asked.

"The boys!" He waved his hands frantically. "They want Spot's..." He searched for the word. "Power! So they stab him!"

"Is that true?" Racetrack demanded. "Don't lie to me." 

Racetrack spoke his words uncomfortably close to the boy's face, but it did nothing to faze him. 

"Yes! And they almost got me, but I run here instead."

Racetrack stood abruptly and started towards the door. Jack ran to catch him, grabbed his wrist, and held him back. 

"Race, you can't do this." 

"I gotta know," Race said simply. 

"If what this boy says is true, you could die," Jack said, exasperated. "Don't do this."

"I have to." Race even sounded a little sad. "You know I have to go."

And he did. Jack let go of his wrist. "I'll see you later, then."

"See you later." 

Jack waited and waited all night, but later never came. The next morning was possibly the worst selling day he had ever had, even though the headline was catching enough, with 28 dead in Brooklyn. Jack just couldn't get into it.

* * *

"I want you to move in with me," David said the moment they left the graveyard. "I mean, if that's alright with you."

"You mean leave the Lodging House?" Jack asked. "Are you sure you want me?"

"Yes," Davey reaffirmed. "As long you're willing, of course. It's just with- with Dad gone now," David gestured to the cemetery behind him, "and Sarah's with her husband...Mama's already so tired as is..."

"Dave-" 

"I'm sorry to spring this up on you," David continued, "it would just be so good for Les to have you around, you know?" David snuck a quick glance around, and upon confirming that they were alone, grabbed Jack's hands tightly. "And I was thinking with where we are now..." 

"Yeah, Davey," Jack murmured as he brought David's head to rest on his chest. He felt David exhale a breath he didn't realize he was holding, and Jack held to him just a little bit tighter. "Of course I'll come stay with you."

* * *

Katherine's curls flew in all different directions as she shook her head wildly, pacing the floor of the Jacobs household. 

"I'm sorry to show up here unannounced, but God, Jack, I didn't know what else to do, I had to come straight here-"

"It's alright, Kath, I promise," said Jack, moving closer to her. 

"Take a seat, Kathy, okay?" David said as he guided her towards a chair. "Can you tell us what happened?"

"I was working," she said between gasps, "And they wanted to write about a... a murder, a father who had killed his son-" With another sharp intake, the tears welling in her eyes finally spilled over. "It was Romeo. God, it was Romeo." 

Jack couldn't look at her anymore, all he could think about was the large scratch on the face of the side table. He stares at it intently. How long had it been there? He had never noticed it before.

Les' voice from far away asked what was happening, and Mrs. Jacobs shuffled in behind him to call for him and David, and Dave left to usher them away. Jack thought numbly that Davey was probably worried that his mother was up at this hour, because they were a family that cared about each other, exactly what Romeo didn't have and now he was dead because of it.

"Jack." Katherine's voice cracked as she spoke. "Jack, look at me." 

But he couldn't bring himself to tear his eyes from that scratch until David was sitting next to him again.

"Jack, honey, can you hear me?" He placed a hand on Jack's forearm, and despite the reflexive rush of panic it brought, every sound became clearer and Jack grabbed his hand and squeezed hard. 

He didn't care that Katherine was there to see them; In fact, when he finally brought himself to look at their faces, she was unflinching at their contact, and only scanned his face for a some sign of his emotional state. 

"It's my fault," Jack admitted. 

"Don't say that." 

"It is!" he insisted. "I should have kept him away." 

David and Katherine could do nothing to argue, and instead only sniffled to themselves. 

"I need to go check on the Lodging House" Jack finally said. "It's been too long since I've been there." He hit a clenched fist against his leg. "I can't do that to them. I owe them more than that." 

"You can go in the morning," said Katherine firmly. She embraced the both of them as tight as she could, and in the moment, it was just the three of them again, just like it used to be. "Try to get some rest tonight."

* * *

"Jack Kelly!"

"Davey!"

"Hiya, Cowboy."

"Katherine!"

They were flooded with newsboys from the moment they walked through the doors of the Lodging House, all climbing over each other for the chance to speak to them. Though Jack recognized some, it had been so long that a good number of them were boys he didn't know. And even out of those he did know, very few were those who had sold with Jack when he was a newsie. Most aged out and found a factory job like he did, leaving only the youngest of them to sell papes.

They remained famous, Jack assumed, through word of mouth, as he found himself struggling to push through the crowd and move towards Crutchie, lingering towards the back. When he finally got there, Jack squeezed him as tightly as he could, and hoped that the embrace alone would be enough to protect him.

"It's been too long, Jack," Crutchie said, almost accusingly.

"I know," Jack murmured into Crutchie's shoulder. "I'm sorry." It wasn't nearly enough, Jack knew, but then, Crutchie could always understand Jack's way of communication.

"You heard, then?" Crutchie asked, pulling away. "About Romeo?" 

"Katherine told us. How are you all taking it?"

"Better than we were," Crutchie said. "It came right after Elmer, you know. Things were real bad for a while. But we're getting by."

"Elmer? What happened with Elmer?"

"Oh, God." Crutchie's hand flew up to cover his mouth. "Jack, I'm sorry, I thought you knew... I just assumed someone had told you-"

"Crutchie, what happened? Where is he?"

David and Katherine had made their way over by this time, and listened intently as Crutchie sputtered over his words. 

"It was Twitch. They were goofing around by the docks in Brooklyn, and Twitch threw him in, Elmer couldn't swim and nobody got to him in time-" Crutchie leaned forward to rest his head on Jack's chest and sniffle. "That was almost a month ago. Jack, I'm so sorry."

* * *

"Pulitzer!" Jack banged his fist on the door as hard as he could. "Joe! Let us in!"

Finally, there stood Joseph Pulitzer himself as the door slowly creaked open. His face was sunken in and his eyes were such gloomier thank Jack remembered them. The Goliath he had fought all those years ago had aged to be a sad, elderly man.

"Jack Kelly," he said, and began to close the door again. 

David quickly stuck his foot in the doorway to keep it from closing. "Sir, please! We're here to see Katherine." 

"Why won't you let us see her?" Jack said accusingly. "She stopped visiting and responding to letters and now you won't let us see her. Why?" 

Pulitzer sighed, defeated. "Katherine has fallen ill with pneumonia. And now I must ask that you refrain from visiting until-"

"Please!" Jack tried desperately. "We're her friends."

"Yes. You always were such close...friends." He awkwardly glanced between them. He appeared deep in thought before he exhaled and spoke again. "You know, I had once hoped you and Katherine would marry."

He closed the door again and didn't open it. 

Jack went back to pounding the door. "Let us in, old man! This ain't right!"

And just like that, that's all he has for his last moments with Katherine. Weeping on her doorstep and the half assed letter informing him of her death he got two weeks later.

* * *

A firetruck whizzed by them for the third time that day. 

"That's odd," David commented. 

"I hope everyone's alright," Crutchie added.

Jack took a moment to appreciate, yet again, the joy of having Crutchie so close in his life again. Having Crutchie move in with them not only meant he got to keep a closer eye on him, but also that he joined him and David in their frequent explorations of the city. 

"Let's check it out," suggested Jack. 

The further they walked, the more people they found doing the same thing. Hoards of people flooded the streets, speaking worriedly to each other in a variety of languages. They all seemed to know where they were going, and none of it made sense to Jack. 

Until he saw the building. 

He'd been there, he'd discussed the injustice of the working conditions with David multiple times, and begged Sarah to stop working there, but she insisted on doing her part to provide for her family. She insisted on making those damn shirtwaists. 

Now, the building spat flames out the window, and far too often, a screaming girl would fling herself out of the building and straight to the ground below. 

David understood even before Jack did, and he raced ahead to get closer, as if he could somehow put out the flames himself. Jack braced himself, and ran to catch up with him. He prayed that somehow Sarah had not been working that day, but his heart had already started grieving.

* * *

"Please," Jack begged. "There has to be something we can do."

David shook his head in his hands. "I'm sorry. But we don't have the money. We have to sell." 

"We can't do that!" Jack yelled, and Crutchie flinched from his spot across the table. "I'll pick up a few extra shifts for somethin', but I ain't getting rid of that theater." 

"You are overworked as it is, Jack!" David was raising his voice right back. "I won't sit here and watch you work yourself to death." 

"You don't know what it's like, David, you don't know what this place is to me-"

"You think I don't know what it's like?!" David shouted, hurt. "In case you've forgotten, Kelly, my parents are dead, just like yours, okay, they're fucking dea-"

"Stop it, stop it!" Crutchie said, breaking through the noise. His lip quivered as he fought for self control. His hands were clamped right over his ears. "Quit fighting!" 

They stopped immediately to listen to Crutchie.

"Jack, you know I loved that old place just as much as you. Maybe," he said as he started to rise from his seat, "I could try and go back to work."

As soon as he finished saying this, he cried out in pain and stumbled, almost falling to the ground. Jack and David both rushed to help him back into his seat. 

"No," Jack reassured him, much quieter this time, "Medda left the building to me. It should be my responsibility."

David sighed "Jack, I'm sorry for what I said. You know I love you, right?"

Jack nodded. "I love you too." 

"And I know it's important to you," David said, "but look down at your hands, for God's sake." 

Jack obeyed. Rough from factory work, they were bruised and calloused, with the fingernails bitten down to stubs from stress. 

"You can't keep pushing yourself, Jack."

David reached over to hold his hand, and Crutchie nodded. 

"Dave's right, Jack. I'm sorry."

Jack nodded wordlessly. He knew there was no more he could do than mourn the loss of his second mother once again.

* * *

When the war took Les from them, Jack assumed it could do no more damage. There was nothing more devastating, nothing that could make David cry more, nothing that could break them any further.

And then Jack got drafted. 

"You have to come home." David said to him, lying in bed that night. "You have to come home to me."

It was only the two of them awake, Crutchie snoring fitfully in his own bed. Crutchie already slept so often nowadays, and the news had especially worn him out. David had cried and cried until there were no more tears to cry and then some, and brought a hand to rest in Jack's hair one more time. 

"I'll try."

"No," Dave insisted. "You have to promise me. Promise that you'll come back." David's tears returned. "My entire family is dead, Jack."

Jack swallowed hard. "I promise."

* * *

When Jack does come back, it's in fragments of his former self rather than a whole piece.

He can't focus like he used to, and focusing was never really something he was known for. Moving his right arm is more and more of a struggle. The nightmares he had almost grown out of returned times ten. But at least he was home with David.

For a long while, they simply clung to one another and kept themselves grounded. They were there. They had each other. What more could they do? 

David, when he could find the words to do so, caught Jack up, to the best of his ability. Jack had already known, of course, about Crutchie's passing but it didn't soften the blow when David told him about it in person, or when they visited Crutchie's grave together. More often than not, Jack would go just to sit there and talk to him about the good old days selling newspapers, or what his life was like now. And he drank. He hated that he did it, but it helped.

Crutchie should've been there with him. He never should have let him go even the slightest bit, he should have marched him straight down to Santa Fe when he still had even a chance of doing so. 

Jack came home from the cemetery one day and told David that he wanted to find some of the other newsboys from their teenage years. "I just need to see at least one," he said. And David, of course, understood.

It took them a while, but they eventually found that Albert was the only other trackable newsie still living. No, Albert hadn't starved, killed himself, or been in a horrible accident, but he had been to war and had seen hell that changed him forever. 

"I know you want to see your old friend," one of his brothers, now caretaker, warned them, "but he isn't there anymore. It's not the same Albert you used to sell papers with."

Maybe so, but Jack wasn't the same Jack anymore. Not even David was the same David. 

Albert didn't make eye contact anymore. He didn't speak in full sentences. He didn't move from the chair in the corner of the living room. But that was okay. Jack and David didn't move from the couch across from him, and they never forced him to speak or to look at them, only kept him company with stories of the good old days. Occasionally, Albert would even crack a smile before squeezing his eyes shut and reverting back to his mumbling. 

When they heard Albert shot himself, Jack felt horribly selfish for not going to the funeral. He tried, he really did, with everything in him. He and Davey had even gotten as far as the church where his brother had written that the ceremony would be, only to immediately turn around and leave. It was far, far too much, and Jack only hoped that God would forgive him.

* * *

It wasn't fair, it wasn't fucking fair, Jack knew. He knew this far too well by then. Still, when David collapsed, just before dinner on a normal Wednesday in their kitchen, Jack's first instinct was to scream, scream until his lungs gave out, scream at God for doing this to him again and again and again. 

He didn't. He had much more pressing matters to deal with. 

He lifted David into their bed and examined him to the best of his ability. He was scratched up from falling. Jack should've been there to catch him. Nonetheless, Jack cleans and dresses the wounds and paces, wondering if it would be worth it to take him to the hospital. 

David's eyelids eventually fluttered open and Jack wheezed as he dove for his hand. 

No, it wasn't worth a trip to the hospital, David decided when he regained more of his consciousness. "If I'm going to die, it will be in my home with the man I love." David caressed the side of Jack's face. "I don't want to risk any hospital workers asking questions."

"You are not going to die, Davey." Jack brought his hands to his own cheeks, wrapping David's and pressing his lips to them. "Especially if the hospital takes care of you."

"Jack, honey," said David sweetly. "I am going to die. That's a fact of life. It's just-" he took a sharp inhale, "-going to be a bit sooner than we expected."

"I can't," Jack said, already tearing up. 

"You can," David insisted. "You have to. Please. Do that for me." 

Jack forced himself to nod. 

David flashed a thin-lipped smile. "Let's make the most of whatever time we have left, alright?"

Jack quit his job. He had to. Absolutely anything other than his precious time with David was pointless now. He spent nearly every moment beside David in that damn bed. 

For months it went on that way. They laughed. They cried. They made what they could of their time, and David's condition only worsened. 

David locked eyes with Jack over their dinner one night and said "I don't think I can do this much longer."

"Sure you can," Jack said fearfully, holding the spoonful of soup a little closer to David's mouth. "Of course you can."

"No," he said, "I can't."

And he broke.

"It's not fair!" he shouted, properly crying for the first time in months. "It's not fair, Jack, I don't want to die. There's too much I still have to do." He leaned forward to grab hold of Jack. The food fell, discarded, to the ground. David tearfully met Jack's eyes. "I'm scared."

Jack crawled into the bed, curled into David's side, and weeped. The two of them simply sat, and wept, and clung to each other. With each passing sob David grew weaker, and Jack cried harder. There was no shame, only Jack wishing he could do more. Wishing he hadn't been so powerless his whole life. 

David passed just like that, in Jack's arms. And in an instant, Jack was utterly alone.

**Author's Note:**

> wow. i started writing this late last year, and i never thought i would see it finished. it's a bittersweet moment.
> 
> i hope you enjoyed, please comment and let me know what you thought or come talk to me on tumblr @conlonspots !


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